YES! contributing editor Madhu Suri Prakash is a longtime friend of
poet, essayist, novelist, activist, and farmer Wendell Berry. Inspired
by changing attitudes among her college students, who were reading
Berry, Madhu declared the Wendell Berry Era, and wrote to him, proposing
that he write an open letter to President Obama calling for funding to
establish new small farms. This correspondence ensued.

Dear Wendell,

Madhu Suri Prakash.

I have a dream; and, at its center, you stand—tall, humble, simply magnificent. Despite
all my reservations about writing to you, here I am, hours before dawn,
doing something I could not even have dared to imagine only last
evening.

I awoke with a dream long before the sun is scheduled to shine. In this
dream, I join millions reading your open letter to the White House,
courteously requesting $5 billion—a tiny pittance compared to the going
rate for government bailouts—to regenerate 50 million family farms; $5
billion, in other words, that could support young people who have the
gumption and sense of adventure necessary to grow food and sequester
carbon in the soil; $5 billion that would allow American women, men, and
their families a chance to eat and grow clean, uncontaminated,
uncancerous food.

Your moral stature and vision are such that all you would have to do is
write such an open letter to the president to more fully awaken
millions; to start a groundswell.

My dream declared itself loud and
clear as soon as I rolled out of bed—perhaps the time is right. It’s
been a long time coming, Wendell. Your half-century-old patience, my
dream declares, may finally be paying off. Your time, the Wendell Berry
Era, has finally dawned. Hopefully.

If I looked back and saw
myself being followed, my only wish would be to escape. I am a mostly
solitary man ...

People might now be ready to embrace your vision, holding it close to
their hearts while abandoning the illusions foisted upon us by recent
elections and by corporate admen and those in cahoots with them. My
dream declares boldly that not only your grassroots fans in the millions
are ready to savor your wisdom, but that others, who may not have heard
of you nor studied your writings, are world-weary of hokey hope and
industrial illusions, and are ready as well. We find ourselves genuinely
scared of the triple crises of climate collapse, resource depletion,
and inequality, which we have all colluded in creating, and, at long
last, are able to hear your words with an openness to surprise.

Your long patience with all of us during the past half-century reminds
me of the 50-year-old patience of Gandhi. Gandhi had a dream of walking
unarmed towards Ahimsa freedom, symbolized by taking back from the
Empire India’s salt—the original birthright of its people. Gandhi’s tiny
coterie of conspirators marching to the ocean to harvest their salt was
the most powerful 20th-century gesture of the powerless spurning brute
force.

If Hindus in the heyday of the British global economy could exercise the
audacity of harvesting salt by the side of their beloved Gandhi, then
what stops us from shaking off the shackles with which Monsanto, ADM,
Cargill, and their governmental gang bind us? What stops us from
harvesting our own food, nourishing our communities, audaciously
enjoying the pleasures of eating?

Wendell, it is clearly outrageous of me to ask anything of you over and
above the many gifts you have brought into my life. Following in your
footsteps, learning lessons given to us by many of your loving
fans—including the likes of Ivan Illich, Michael Pollan, and Barbara
Kingsolver—I find myself still compelled to write to you from my small
world in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania.
The time has come to listen to you and your kindred spirits.

Your era is our era.

We are ready.

Affectionately, Madhu

P.S.
Have I ever properly thanked Tanya and you for all the abundant gifts
of hospitality with which you showered Krishna, Gustavo, and me?

Dear Madhu,

Your letter is full of good news. Its only
mistake is your overestimation of me and what I’m capable of. As most
men would be, I’m delighted to have made an appearance in an attractive
woman’s dreams, and so I’m tempted to concur in all the terms of your
praise, but in fairness to my own understanding of myself I’m obliged to
resist.

I’m not a leader. I am, above all, in no way comparable to Gandhi, who
was an ascetic. I love the world’s abundance of ordinary pleasures. And
he was a leader. I have neither the character nor the abilities required
for leadership. And I want no followers. If I looked back and saw
myself being followed, my only wish would be to escape. I am a mostly
solitary man, always in need of quiet, who has written some essays
inviting, not converts or followers, but honest judgment.

So far as I can see, there is no reason for me to write an open letter
to the president. All of my effort as an essayist has been at least to
suggest the real complexity of the issues of agriculture, and of all of
human culture in its relationships to nature. I would not now reduce
that effort to the inevitable oversimplification of an open letter to a
politician.

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Page 2

Wendell Berry on his front porch in Port Royal, Kentucky, earlier this year.

Photo by Charlie Pearl/State-Journal.

As far as an open letter to everybody, I think that is exactly what I
have already written in my essays in which, by now, I have probably said
nearly all I’m capable of saying. Now I have my mind mostly on writing
of other kinds.

In fact, Madhu, what we both want to happen—a counter movement to greed
and waste and the dominance of corporations—is already happening. It is
happening simply because a lot of people have seen things needing to be
done and are doing them. They are at work without grants, without
official instruction or permission, and mostly unnoticed by the
politicians and the news industry. Eventually this movement will have
political powers which will be in some ways regrettable. I hope it will
have the sense and strength to remain locally oriented, and to resist
the simplification and corruption that will come with power.

This movement involves a lot of people—as I know—who have never read a
word I’ve written, who don’t know my name. And it would be happening
now, for the same reasons, if I had never written a word. It would be
happening because the justifications of individual and corporate greed
are now exhausted, and better ways are available. The better ways will
be helped along, as we know, by large historical forces such as rising
energy costs, rising ecological and social costs, and the inability of
governments, large institutions, and corporations to respond
effectively.

And so, rather than becoming more involved, I intend, and I’ve begun, to
be involved less. I’ve already, except for one engagement next May, put
an end to my career as a “visiting writer.” There’ll be no more trips
to schools, libraries, etc. I’ll continue to do what is necessary, even
travel, to stand with my old allies against the coal companies, and to
work with Wes Jackson, Fred Kirschenmann, and other friends on
agricultural issues—such as, right now, the 50-year Farm Bill. (I’ll
enclose a copy.)

But I greatly dislike such public life (crowd life) as I have had, and I
want less of it. I want to be more at home, more quiet, more employed
at the work that still seems my own to do.So this is my love letter back to you. I would like Krishna and Gustavo to know I wish them well.

Your friend,Wendell

Dear Wendell,

Just as I begged you in my November letter, Wes Jackson urged those
gathered at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture
(PASA) conference to use their power and influence to push this
nation/Washington, D.C./civil society towards implementing the bill,
from the grassroots and ground up, starting today.

I asked him what type of farm/place/farmer connections he envisions. He
reiterated your celebration of diversity in farms and communities,
working with the genius of their places. …

Responding to questions about
the farmers and communities that would be needed to implement the
50-Year Farm Bill, he estimated 80 million Americans growing good food
on 400 million acres of good soil; supported by $50 million.

Sitting in with Wendell BerryAn interview with Wendell Berry midway through his four-day sit-in in
the Kentucky governor's office in protest of mountaintop removal coal
mining.

You continue to be the beloved hero/leader of PASA. Your disinterest in
power and politics is what, I sense, draws PASA farmers and members
towards your philosophy of farming practices.

So, Wendell, there
you have it! Your 50-Year Farm Bill for the nation inevitably has Berry
moving the hearts, minds, and spirits of millions—despite all his
disavowals of leadership and his perfectly understandable shyness of
being followed and pedestalized by followers and devotees.

Life is funny that way, Wendell! Don’t you think so?

With more affection,Madhu

Dear Madhu,

I’m
not disinterested in power and politics. But I don’t think there is
much to be gained from answering the oversimplifications of politicians
with our own oversimplifications. The World, the given World, is complex
and finally mysterious. The truth of it cannot be reduced to campaign
slogans or bumper stickers. We must remember this, even under political
pressure, and we must keep reminding the politicians.

Václav Havel called it “the power of the powerless.” How regular people,
from Denmark to Liberia, have stood up to power—and won.

ConvictedHow does the United States try cases of civil disobedience? Activist Tim
DeChristopher on how much has changed since the founding fathers.

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Madhu Suri Prakash is a contributing editor to YES! Magazine, a national nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. This article originally appeared in Beyond Prisons, the Summer 2011 issue of YES!